


AC2014 [15]: Changes

by twotenths



Series: F1 Advent Challenge 2014 [10]
Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Advent Challenge 2014, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:29:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2784995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twotenths/pseuds/twotenths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t as though he hadn’t expected change—that was the point of moving to Williams, after all—but he hadn’t expected things to be quite so different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	AC2014 [15]: Changes

**Author's Note:**

> I'm almost caught up with myself! Ficlet inspired by elyndys after I got writer's block and couldn't think of anything to write about-- thank you! :D

It wasn’t as though he hadn’t expected change—that was the point of moving to Williams, after all—but he hadn’t expected things to be quite so different.

Being Ferrari’s second longest serving driver (only three years less than Michael) meant that Felipe had become accustomed to a certain way of life. Not in the sense that he was pampered or coddled, just that there was a way of doing things in Ferrari that had been ingrained in him. Firstly, there was _always_ a number one driver, no matter how Stefano or Luca protested otherwise. He himself had thoroughly enjoyed this feeling of being the team leader in 2008 and the first half of 2009, he worked a damn sight harder than Kimi had, even in his championship year. On the other hand, he had acutely felt the sting of dismissiveness in 2010 with Fernando. In all honesty, his relationship with the _Scuderia_ had begun to deteriorate from there. Williams was quite different in this respect; although both he and Valtteri had different roles—Felipe the experienced leader, helping to build the team back up from its years in the doldrums, and Valtteri the quick, young thing, out to impress—Felipe was never made to feel that his importance was any less than the young Finn’s.

Politics. Felipe felt a vague pang of sadness for his former home, and the family he had left behind as it unravelled over the season. For all his involvement in Germany, Felipe liked Stefano, who had done a frankly incredible job over the years of holding the lame horse together whilst the board pointed fingers and flung accusations at one another, ignoring the issues that really needed to be fixed. The team seemed to fall apart after he was gone. It’s strange at Williams. Not in a bad way, just in a slightly bemusing one. The factory is almost deafeningly quiet, bereft of raucous Italians with voices that carry and laughter that rings in the corridor. The dry wit and pithy sarcasm of the British mechanics took some getting used to, but soon enough, he’s laughing along with them. It’s even stopped being a shock when he looks down at himself and finds himself in blinding white as opposed to Ferrari red.

It’s certainly different at his new home, but he has adapted and grown into the team, and feels just as welcome and loved as he did in Italy. Perhaps even more so. One thing he has trouble with, however, is not having Rob by his side.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Andrew; on the contrary, he gets on with him very well, even if it had taken him a while to get used to the accent. But it always comes as a surprise to him when he’s in the car and hears the beep of the radio followed by instructions in Andrew’s Northern Irish twang, as opposed to Rob’s northern burr. Stranger still is when Rob hops off the pitwall and wander into the garage, only to spend an inordinate amount of time on _Valtteri’s_ side, wandering over briefly to Andrew, pointing out a couple of things on the screen to him, before heading back into the pitlane.

Felipe had never been a particularly patient person, so he tolerated this behaviour for a few races before he snapped, cornering Rob after a particularly rubbish weekend.

“Why do you ignore me?” he demanded, a scowl etched deep on his face.

“I’m not,” Rob replied.

“You are never on my side of the garage, always on _his,_ playing favourites!”

A silence stretched between them, and Felipe regretted saying it before Rob said anything at all.

“Hey,” he said evenly, and damn it, everything about him was even, and measured and so far removed from the race engineer that had once put custard in one of his mechanic’s shoes. It made Felipe feel pathetically petulant and about three feet tall. “Get them out of your head, yeah? We’re at Williams now, there’s no favourites.” He tempers this with a gentle poke on his forehead, where metal met bone.

“Then why do you spend so long with him and so little time with me?”

Rob sighs, and his mask of professionalism slips a little. “People talk enough as it is, saying I followed you, or you followed me. I don’t want to give them more reason to say we can’t exist without each other, that I play favourites.”

“So you make them think he is your favourite instead?” Felipe can hear the pout in his own voice.

Rob smiled wearily and said nothing, but Felipe found he lingered a little longer in his garage at the next race weekend, even stopping by long enough to briefly lean into his cockpit and point out a point on his telemetry where he can make up time on Valtteri. Felipe knew this anyway, was going to adjust his braking point on the next run, but he grinned beneath his helmet even so. He still felt slightly neglected but was no longer avoided like he had contracted the plague.

When Rob had been Felipe’s race engineer, he had been _his._ If Felipe distracted Rob from his paperwork, it would be him that suffered for it. Rob had an entire team on his shoulders now, and it seemed to Felipe that all his free time was spent rifling through bits of paper or making Very Important Phone Calls. It wasn’t that hadn’t expected change in that department; he just hadn’t expected it to be so different.

After the podium however, with the cheers of the _tifosi_ still ringing in his ears, Rob had cornered him, pulling him into his room, pushing him into the sofa with a grin.

“Ah,” Felipe said, his mood considerably buoyed by the afternoon, as Rob smeared kisses down his neck, “So you will only be with me when I am on the podium hmm?”

“If it means you’ll drive like you did today, then you bet,” Rob murmured over his skin.

“You are a glory hunter now hmm? I wonder if you did this to Valtteri after his podiums?” Felipe asked, breathing heavily.

“That would be telling.”

Felipe smacked him lightly on the side, making Rob huff a laugh into his shoulder. “I don’t want to do this to Valtteri, only you. That’ll never change.”

Felipe smiled, cupping Rob’s cheeks in his hands as he pulled him down with him, forever thankful that despite the great upheaval of both their lives, some things stay the same.


End file.
